Caroline Aherne originally portrayed the character as 'Mrs Murton' in a pilot for Yorkshire TV that was not picked up; she later retooled the character to be older and recorded a second pilot in 1993 for Granada Television, which commissioned the series.

The character was first created in 1986 on Piccadilly Radio and was originally played by Kate Copstick before Caroline Aherne took over the role in 1988.

Before her television success, Aherne's Mrs Merton character appeared on Frank Sidebottom's album 5/9/88 and on Aherne's KFM Radio show in Stockport.

Mrs Merton first appeared on national radio in the late 1980s on Radio 2 and BBC GMR; Aherne was offered £10 by BBC GMR, an amount Radio 2 raised to £15.

The character made her national terrestrial television debut on the 1991 Channel 4 gameshow Remote Control, hosted by Anthony H Wilson, and Aherne had no ownership of the character's copyright at the time.

For the first two series, the show's house band Hooky and the Boys was fronted by Aherne's then-husband Peter Hook; after their divorce, the band was replaced by The Patrick Trio from the 1996 Christmas special onward.

In 1997 production moved to Las Vegas for a series of specials featuring Hollywood stars, but the specials were poorly received and criticized by critic Garry Bushell, who was later a guest on the following UK series and got roasted by Mrs Merton and her audience.

Aherne revealed in a November 2001 interview that she only agreed to do a final series of the show on condition she could then write a sitcom with Craig Cash, which became the BAFTA-winning The Royle Family.

In an August 2006 poll of 4,000 people commissioned by UKTV Gold for the best comic one-liner, Mrs Merton's question to Debbie McGee — 'So, what first attracted you to the millionaire Paul Daniels?' — ranked second.